by Skye Warren
Mess him up, sure, most likely with money. That was my ill-formed plan. After all, Al Capone was brought down by tax evasion. Maybe Henri had an assload of unpaid parking tickets, and Luke could waltz in and arrest him.
But probably not.
“Not me,” I said. “Someone else—”
She laughed. “Who, the cops? If they were willing to, he would already be dead.” She grew serious. “You want to help people, but you don’t want to touch them, talk to them. You want to be the martyr, so be one.”
I blinked, taken aback by her observation and its accuracy. It made me feel a little dirty to hear my motivations spoken so plainly, but it also cleared my mind. This was what I wanted, to help those girls, to help myself. In that way, Luke and I weren’t so different, although we came at the problem from different sides.
Still, I couldn’t kill Henri. Could I? The idea made me terrified…and giddy. But I wasn’t sure I could even shoot this thing. I still dreamed occasionally, flashing back to that split second when I realized I was going to die. The metal barrel glinted in the moonlight as it swung toward me. I heard the report like an explosion in my ears and found myself already on my back, already bleeding, blissfully gone.
I hadn’t died, though. I’d gotten almost completely better. My shoulder still didn’t stretch all the way up or back, but what was I, an Olympic gymnast? And when the weather changed, I felt a chill run through the puckered skin all the way to the bone. My imagination, probably.
“I don’t think I can.”
“Don’t be selfish. This isn’t just about you, Shelly.”
A shiver ran through me, an echo of accusations I had run from all my life, even though I knew they were true. I was selfish to my core, working everyone around me like a master puppeteer. Never stop moving, never stop manipulating, or they’d crumple to the ground like lifeless dolls and prove I’d been alone all along.
“He’s after you,” she continued. “He’s after that girl I’m sure you’ve stashed away someplace safe while you play the hero. He has whole apartment buildings of girls he’s using right now, hurting right now. But as long as you can walk away, it’s okay to leave those girls behind. As long as you get yours.”
I swallowed, unable to say a word in my defense. Compared to her, to all she had done for these girls, I’d done nothing at all. So I would go to the club and fix this, for Ella, for Marguerite—for myself, so that I could feel something other than hate.
“I need something else from you,” I said quietly. “A couple fake IDs.”
She raised her eyebrows. “What makes you think I can get them for you?”
I shrugged. “You deal in false identities, and you do a better job of it than WitSec. Pretty sure that includes a little laminate.”
“Going hunting?”
“We’ll call it scouting.”
She considered me. “Give me the information.”
I told her mine first. She typed away on a laptop, taking it down. Then I said, “And one for my cop, as you call him. He’ll be coming with me.”
She smiled. “Very good. What’s his name?”
“Luke. Luke Cameron.”
Her smile slipped, just a fraction.
I frowned. “Do you know him?”
“No,” she said, turning back to the keyboard. “He’s a stranger.”
Chapter Three
I took the gun with me. It sat on my passenger seat, seemingly innocuous. Just plastic and metal melded together, like the seat buckle it rested on. Except it was lethal, if I used it right. Marguerite had given me a quick crash course. Would I remember? One shot, one chance.
As I drove through the city, my eyes fixated on every Dumpster or trash can, on every litter-strewn ditch I saw. I could get rid of it and call the whole thing off. And be alone again, afraid again. Was it really power or just the illusion? The pain in my shoulder felt real enough. I wasn’t sure if I could kill in cold blood, even knowing it was for the greater good, but I was sold on using it to protect myself. I would go to the club and carry it with me. If I was going to win this fight, I’d need to get my hands dirty.
Henri was out there searching for me. Philip was waiting for me to fail so he could take what he wanted. And now my father was out there too, with actions unknown and repercussions that could run deep.
Suddenly Luke’s hesitance didn’t seem bad at all. It sounded downright heavenly. The gun might be another wedge between us. He wouldn’t want me to use it. Hell, I didn’t want to use it either. But I would. With Ella’s neck on the line, I would. With my honor against the wall. I wasn’t selfish, despite what my father thought. Maybe this was the final test. The last gift, and then what? I’d do what money hadn’t done for Allie. What innocence hadn’t for Ella. I’d save us all, and then I’d finally prove my father wrong.
Inside Philip’s house, I skated around the kitchen and living rooms, hoping to avoid any contact with anyone. Instead I went up to the observatory, where I dozed into a mindless coma. It didn’t matter whether my eyes were open or closed. They were still blanketed with black and dotted with stars. I could still taste the sour night air through the double-paned glass. Such were the dreams of a hothouse flower, imagining she knew freedom in a cage, reaching for the earth at the bottom of her pot.
“Shelly?” came a whispered question. Then again, closer.
If I didn’t say anything, Ella might go away. And spend the next quarter of a century searching the whole damn house. I sighed. There really was no rest for the wicked.
“What do you need?” I called, knowing my voice would reflect off the glass around us.
“Where are you?”
“Climb the stairs in the far corner.”
A few minutes later, she crawled into the loft sectional. “Hey, this is nice. Peaceful. Kind of private.”
“Yeah,” I said drily. Private.
She nestled among the pillows beside me. “Oh, did you want me to leave?”
I didn’t, really. I liked her chattering presence, her unflagging spirit, her undeserved devotion to me. She filled the void that Allie had once occupied, sharing herself in a way I never could.
“You can stay.”
“The house is just so big. And empty. Where do you suppose Philip went? Do you think he’s coming back?”
“Probably. Don’t go looking for him, okay?”
“Okay. I get it.” She fell silent, but the air still buzzed with her energy.
Maybe I had gone about this all wrong. I had asked question after question, receiving very little back. If I offered answers first, she would… What, trust me? I rolled my eyes in the dark. Love me? The lost little girl who needs everyone to love her.
Pathetic.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said, “about what we talked about, about why I didn’t leave. Or why I didn’t leave successfully.”
“Yeah, the poison.” Her voice grew cautious, as if she expected me to pounce.
Not yet, though. First I needed to spin my web, using the strongest net I knew. No words held more power than the truth. I would speak a few honest words tonight, in the hush of twilight, in the presence of innocence, and my only purpose was to draw out something useful in return. This wasn’t for me. There weren’t enough prostitutes in Amsterdam to offer me absolution.
“It’s not about where we end up. It’s about where we came from. Prostitution was always in my future. I just figured I’d be fucking one old guy for money instead of several and that we’d be married.”
Her voice lilted, uncertain. “Why not make your own money?”
“This is my own money. You mean, why not put on a pinched suit and sit in a cubicle for ten hours a day? We have very few choices in life, but one thing we can do is pick our poison. I’ll take a couple of sweaty men over a marketing department full of them any day. Except…”
“Except?”
“I thought about changing, once. That was when I met you. I was completely out. Until I wasn’t. I’m still not sure how it happened. At the time,
I thought it meant Henri was too powerful to deny. But now I wonder if it doesn’t go further back than him. Like maybe someone above him is pulling the strings.”
“You mean God?”
I laughed. “I meant my father, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind your assessment of the situation.”
“What does your father have to do with it?”
“I don’t know. Nothing, probably. But if he does, if I’m right…then all this shit really was preordained.” I laughed again. “Like God. Like fate. Just another fool on Fortune’s Wheel.”
Her throat worked audibly. “You’re scaring me.”
“Sorry,” I said, contrite. “I’m not the best company right now. You should probably go.”
Her hand fumbled for mine, burning where it touched. “It’s okay. You can tell me.”
Strangely, I believed her. Or maybe I just needed it to be true.
Chapter Four
In history class, we learned that each new civilization plows over the existing one. Archaeologists cut through rock and measure the years based on the layers within. Pottery shards of one culture sit only yards above, feet above the broken pieces that came before it. That was what our neighborhood in south Chicago did.
Some big-shot community development folks bought up a rectangle right in the middle of the projects, razed it down, and built a handful of million-dollar homes. The poor, run-down houses surrounding the gated neighborhood were the murky waters of a moat, something to be crossed between the castle at home and the freeway.
Except for the kids. We were all zoned to the same school district, and since dear old Dad didn’t see fit to send me to private school, I got to mingle with the commoners. The rich and the privileged usually dominate, but not there. There the strong and the fearless would—and did—cut an uppity white kid and take his iPod.
Luckily I’ve always had a pretty face and a nice rack. Or maybe not so luckily, since men tended to notice, and the kind of men who notice such things on a thirteen-year-old aren’t very good. Like my father. He touched me and had sex with me, and what are you going to do? Even then, I knew better than to bite the hand that feeds me. Even then, I knew what I was.
I wasn’t bitter about what my father did. It was the way of the world.
I also learned that Cleopatra’s daughter was only fifteen years old when she was forced to marry an older man, and I imagined myself an exotic princess fulfilling her birthright. Some Egyptian royalty married their relatives, even. The analogy fit, because my mother had been beautiful and selfish, leaving her daughter to face the world alone. Not that I was bitter about it, but life went on, for me at least.
The important part of this story began when I left home. That day I approached his office.
I knocked.
The long wait indicated how annoyed he’d be at the interruption. “Come in.”
I slipped inside and stood before his desk. “Hello, sir.”
He didn’t look up, rifling through papers on his desk. His hair was rumpled, shirtsleeves rolled up. “Speak,” he said.
My stomach sank. I had hoped for a good day, when he took me on his lap, took what he wanted, and then asked what he could do to make me happy. “Can I come back when you’re free?”
“I won’t be.” He slammed the papers with his fist, finally looking me in the eye. “This is what I do, Shelly. I work so that you can live here, wear the clothes you wear, so that Juanita can clean up after you. Now what is so important that you had to disturb me?”
Deep breath. “My friend. Allie. You may remember her. She came over a few times when… Anyway, she’s in trouble.”
An eyebrow rose. “Trouble?”
I flushed. “She’s pregnant.”
“I see.”
If he thought she was a bad influence, he wouldn’t help. “It wasn’t her fault, I swear. She said no. He wasn’t even her boyfriend. He just—”
“Quiet.”
I stilled, stomach churning.
He got up from his desk and strolled over to the window. “Do you know what I see when I look out there?” He glanced back at me. “At the rattraps that litter our lawn, where your friend no doubt lives?”
I licked my lips. “She doesn’t have a choice.”
“No,” he said. “I doubt she does. Which is what makes her an animal, only acting on instinct and fear. Those rotting apartment buildings are the cages we keep them in, like unwanted pets we’re too soft to kill. So what does that make me?”
Failure tightened my throat. “Sir…”
“Come and see, Shelly.”
My leaden feet carried me to the window. I stared at the jagged landscape of concrete and flesh, of rust and blood, while he brushed my hair aside and kissed my neck.
“What does that make you?” he whispered.
Cold air slipped under my skirt. His fingers bruised my hips. A sharp burn before I blocked out everything physical, pushed away anything warm and feeling and human. I was an animal, only acting on instinct and fear. I heard his footsteps as he returned to his desk and the rasp of pen on paper.
“Come here.”
He handed me a wad of cash. Five thousand dollars, I counted out later.
“Thank you, sir,” I whispered.
“After this, I don’t want you to see her again. A girl like that could be a bad influence on you.”
I took a cab to the county hospital, where the uninsured were allowed, where two other pregnant women shared her room, and sat at Allie’s side, the folded wad of money in my purse burning a hole in my gut.
Her brown hair splayed across the pillow, her face was damp with sweat. Pain wrenched her sweet features, but she smiled weakly at me. “I wondered where you’d got off to.”
“Had to stop at the bank,” I said lightly.
My best friend for years, she knew what that meant. Not the specifics, of course. There were some things better left unshared. But she knew that my father was a bastard.
Her forehead creased in worry. “Are you okay?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m not the one in labor. How are you? What are they saying?”
“Any minute now.” She grimaced. “That’s what they said nine hours ago.”
“There’s nothing they can do? I’ll talk to the nurse.”
She caught my hand. “No. I just want you to sit with me. Can you?”
So I did, crawling into the bed beside her. The cold steel of the railing bit into my side, but I needed the contact as much as she did, maybe more. I needed the hard, contracting bump on her belly, the mysterious, elusive hope born of a nightmare, to make me forget.
The woman on the next bed began to cough, ragged and thick. I held Allie’s hand, pretending this was normal and okay and a perfectly safe environment for her child to be born into. A child, when we could barely take care of ourselves. What would she do? Her dad had sent her two hundred dollars when she’d called him. That was all the money she had. And now my five thousand.
If I told her. She would take that money, spread it thin, and make it last. Then what would she need me for?
She clenched and keened as a contraction hit, and I rocked with her through it, wincing as she squeezed my hand. It wasn’t enough to distract me from the ache lower down my body.
“Have you thought about where you’re going to live?” I asked.
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know, but I can’t stay at the shelter forever.”
“Yeah, I guess… I mean, you’ll probably get a full time job or something, right?”
“I already talked to Rick. He’s going to up my hours at the bakery.”
“Oh. Who’s going to watch the baby? I mean, a decent day care will be expensive.”
Her lower lip trembled. “I know. But I’ll make it work. I have to, right?”
Forgive me, Allie. “And what about when she gets sick? They don’t let sick kids go to day care. You’ll have to stay home and take her to the doctor. Rick isn’t exactly the lenient type. Plus paying for the do
ctor… Is your paycheck there really going to cover all that?”
A tear fell down her cheek. “I don’t know. What can I do?”
“I’m just worried about you. I want to help.” Five thousand dollars wouldn’t last forever, but it would be a good start. Something to comfort her. But what about me? I couldn’t go back. Something had snapped. What does that make you? A pretty bird in a gilded cage, its wings clipped for its own health and safety. “I’ll stay with you. I can help with the baby and with money. You’ll see. We’ll do it together.”
She blinked wetly. “What about your dad?”
I despised my dad. “I’m an adult now. It’s time I left the nest.”
She knew better. “Will he let you go?”
“He doesn’t have a choice. Shh, now. Don’t worry.” I pressed my lips to her forehead. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”
And I didn’t have to be alone either.
I placed an ad online and met up with a few average johns before Henri called me up. He was exceedingly polite over the phone and brutal in person. A few weeks later, I was earning four times as much on his payroll.
For two years, I played babysitter by day and prostitute by night. A few times I had tried to leave the life, but something always dragged me back. Usually money. Occasionally the rough hands of Henri’s men. Every time, a small part of me sighed in relief. At least I knew how to do this. This way, I was wanted.
My complacency had been a fool’s gold. I had worked the upper echelon of Chicago’s sex trade and never run into my father. He ran in the same circles as these men, the rich and the cruel, but it was a big city. There were plenty to go around. Or had he been avoiding me? He said I’d always be his little slut.
It spun a silvered web in the shadows of my mind. Henri had targeted Jenny as revenge over her boyfriend’s shady business. He ripped each dime right out of her skin and gained face in the process.
What does this have to do with me?
Maybe nothing.
But it was everything. How had Henri known to contact me? I had always assumed that call had been random. It wasn’t. I knew that now, certain to my bones. For some reason, Henri had contacted me, worked me over, and offered me a job. Payback for some business deal gone wrong with my father? Maybe. Either way, I had never despised him more.